'It: Chapter Two' Will Be Long AF, So Prepare For Lots Of Screaming
Moviegoers are going to have to face Pennywise's terrors for a lot longer in the second go-around of the latest It adaptation. The director of the upcoming horror sequel just revealed how long It: Chapter Two will be, and let's just say you are going to want to make sure that you go to the bathroom before entering the theater. The new movie is going to be close to three hours long, significantly lengthier than the 2017 film it is following.
Director Andy Muschietti revealed the new movie's longer-than-expected runtime in an interview with Digital Spy over the weekend. Muschietti, who also directed the 2017 iteration of It, said that original edit of the sequel clocked in at a whopping four hours in length. Obviously, Muschietti had to edit that down despite believing everything in the original script felt essential to the story, and he confirmed the theatrical release will be approximately two hours and 45 minutes long — a full half-hour longer than the 2017 It's runtime of two hours and 15 minutes.
You cannot deliver a four-hour movie because people will start to feel uncomfortable — no matter what they see — but we ended up having a movie that is two hours and 45 minutes, and the pacing is very good. Nobody who's seen the movie has had any complaint.
It should come to a relief to fans that none of the test audiences have complained about the movie's length; it's possible those two hours and 45 minutes will be too good to feel long at all.
Despite its lengthy runtime, It: Chapter Two will still not be the longest major movie release of 2019. Marvel's Avengers: Endgame made waves earlier this summer with its gargantuan runtime of two hours and two minutes, and Quentin Tarantino's newly released Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actually matches It: Chapter Two's runtime of two hours and 45 minutes.
Movie fans who aren't averse to super-long films should not despair at losing important elements of It: Chapter Two, though. Muschietti confirmed there will be a director's cut of the new movie that will include much more of what was originally filmed. There's no word yet on whether this director's cut will be four hours long, as Muschietti hinted at in the interview, but it should definitely be enough to give It superfans an even more fleshed out story.
The upcoming sequel will look a lot different than the 2017 It movie. Set 27 years after the events of the first film, the Losers Club will now be all grown up, and must return to their hometown of Derry, Maine, to defeat the force of evil known as It once and for all. The child actors from the first movie will still appear for parts of the sequel, but for the bulk of the movie, their roles will be taken over by James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, Isaiah Mustafah, James Ransome, and Andy Bean. And of course, Bill Skarsgård will reprise his role as Pennywise, It's favorite form to take.
It: Chapter Two will scare its way into theaters on Sept. 6.
